Politicians From Australia

"No, I'm not interested, don't lead me into your rubbish, don't you keep taking us on your flights of fancy. Your city lily pad lefty map mindset."

"Treasurer, cannot the Clean Energy Finance Corporation—a development bank ready-to-go—fund industry and infrastructure, Australia builds its way out of the COVID depression—manufacturing, industry, agriculture. North Queensland shovel-ready and COVID-free. Hells Gates, Galilee rail line, CopperString electrification. Not absorb-money but make-money projects, to show you and I are trendy—back in black highway to hell. Um, Treasurer, cough, cough up, the money, make money, make money."

"I mean—you know—people are entitled to their sexual proclivities, you know, I mean let there be a thousand blossoms bloom as far as I'm concerned, you know—but I ain't spending any time on it because in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland."

"Maybe I know nothing about politics, but if this is getting you votes, I am a Martian astronaut!"

"The person that prevents us from shooting those crocodiles shall be dragged into a courtroom and held to account for the deaths of North Queenslanders."

"Now one of the many lessons from the 2003 Canberra bushfires was the need for early, clear and effective communication with the community on the risks ahead, allowing people to plan and make decisions on whether they'll stay or when they will go."

"We are working on a number of fronts (against COVID-19), firstly to make sure that there is support for those Australians and we are also working on, as are other countries, to try to secure their ability to return to Australia."

"One of my missions was to raise the voice of women like me, raise the voice of migrant women and women of colour so it could be part of the political system."

"With the proper understanding of the economic system, the workers will soon find means to end that system, and to raise on its ruins a development of society having for its goal the benefit of the whole, instead of a part, of the community."

"If we turn back to the time when the first compulsory education act was passed, we find that the capitalists of England fought these acts with all their might, but that they soon withdrew their opposition and supported them. For the employers recognised that though the children would know a little more, the amount could be so restricted that the result would only be to make them better wage slaves, knowing no more of freedom than what we have known and experienced of it."

"Feudalism, whatever may be said of it otherwise, was at least based on an personal relationship: capitalism, on the other hand, is a relationship of things. The difference in the two is vast; and the difference in the outlook engendered in the community is also vast."

"Any suggestion that I supported or condoned the vile crimes of child abusers is completely untrue. When Jack Dromey, as NCCL chairman in 1976, vigorously opposed PIE at the NCCL AGM, he did so with the full support of the Executive Committee and myself as general secretary. As the NCCL archives demonstrate, I consistently distinguished between consenting relationships between homosexual men, on the one hand, and the abuse of children on the other. NCCL in the 1970s, along with many others, was naive and wrong to accept PIE's claim to be a 'campaigning and counselling organisation' that 'does not promote unlawful acts'. As General Secretary then, I take responsibility for the mistakes we made. I got it wrong on PIE and I apologise for having done so. I should have urged the Executive Committee to take stronger measures to protect NCCL's integrity from the activities of PIE members and sympathisers and I deeply regret not having done so. ..."

"Our proposal that the age of consent be reduced is based on the belief that neither the police nor the criminal courts should have the power to intervene in a consenting sexual activity between two young people. It is clearly the case that a number of young people are capable of consenting to sexual activity and already do so."

"Prison officers do not have a 'duty of care' to protect prisoners who harm themselves while taking part in illegal behaviour. With regard to needles in prisons, provision of bleach could also be harmful. Bleach is by nature a corrosive agent and could cause serious injury if thrown into the eyes of a prison officer or fellow prisoner, There is evidence that even the highly caustic phenol used to sterilise dental instruments does not eliminate all HIV viruses - only autoclaving in super-heated steam is fully effective. If government provided bleach fails to sterilise prisoners’ illegal needles adequately, does the government become liable for breach of duty of care?"

"Two of the House of Assembly members, Mr Scalzi and Mr Leggett, basically said that efforts should be made to stamp out drug use, sex and rape in prisons. I think we might as well try to make efforts to try to stop the sun rising, because the evidence we received showed that—it does not matter where you want to go—no other country in the world has been able to stop drug use in prison. If you cannot stop drug use, I doubt very much that you will be able to stop sexual practices, given that the sex drive is probably a little bit stronger than the desire to use drugs."

"Provision of condoms also sends the message that sex between prisoners is OK - yet abstinence is part and parcel of a prison sentence."

"South Australian prison officers do have a duty of care to protect inmates from rape and from assault. Provision of condoms would not protect against rape: prisoners with rape or assault tendencies should be separated from other prisoners. So should prisoners with HIV/AIDS."

"Injecting illegal drugs is NOT OK! Prison must be a place where prisoners can detoxify and have the chance to break the habit. This avenue should be addressed, rather than options which reinforce the addictive behaviour."

"I'm a media tart. You tell me one politician that's not a media tart, tell me one that's not."

"Bruce Hawker was a useful press secretary for a state premier a few years ago before becoming a lobbyist. Right now I am sure he has his hands full helping bail out a sinking Labor government with a recycled Kevin Rudd."

"In the race of life, always back self-interest; at least you know it's trying."

"Mr Turnbull declined this proposition so I advised that I would have no alternative but to resign from the Shadow Cabinet as I was not able to support the CPRS legislation"

"If the question is do people (in the Liberal Party) believe that human beings are the main cause of the planet warming, then I'd say a majority don't accept that position"

"Mr Rudd's arrogance and vanity in wanting to lead the world in cutting CO2 emissions is really sickening"

"It is literally crazy to be committing to an ETS (emissions trading scheme) before seeing the outcome of Copenhagen . . . and frankly idiotic before we see the final form of the US emissions trading scheme"

"I have said consistently in my 16-and-a-half years in the parliament, I have always supported the party room's decision and the party room is the ultimate authority on these matters. I don't expect that to change."

"It is absolutely outrageous that a spin doctor for Labor's NBN Co is being paid $450,000 per annum by Australian taxpayers to promote a company that generates no revenue, has no customers and provides no services to anybody"

"In Australia there are not limits on what you can believe but there are limits on how you can behave. It's called the law, and no one is above it."

"I regularly see constituents, speak to people who feel let down by the justice system quite fundamentally, and these are people who don't make the headlines. These are people who have felt that their sense their grief, their sense of injustice has been compounded by a system that just doesn't work, that just doesn't listen to victims, that effectively disempowers them all too often."

"I don't know if I am a very good politician … I'm not a good hater."

"Do you want Australian tax exemptions to be supporting an organisation that coerces its followers into having abortions? Do you want to be supporting an organisation that defrauds, that blackmails, that falsely imprisons? Because on the balance of evidence provided by victims of Scientology you probably are."

"Adelaide has so little going for it that it should be shut down."

"I was surprised to learn that Adelaide had television."

"I am never going to make another comment about another capital city, I promise you, I promise you that."

"It is unlikely that you'll have anything emerge from MEF (Major Economies Forum) by way of detailed programmatic specificity."

"That means temporary borrowings. People have to understand that because there's going to be the usual political shit storm, sorry, political storm."

"My name is Kevin, I'm from Queensland, and I'm here to help."

"The major challenges of climate change, the major challenge of the economy and manufacturing, the major challenges in education, and how do we turbo-charge our national education system to create the knowledge base for the future of the Australian economy. These are the sorts of areas that you're going to see detailed policy plans from us in the weeks and months ahead..."

"When it comes to labour market reform, here's the difference between us and John Howard: John Howard regards labour as just like any other economic commodity. We actually see labour as made up of human beings. These are human beings with an intrinsic dignity. When they go to the workplace, they're not just like a lump of wood or a piece of coal, these are human beings, and they should be treated properly as people with intrinsic rights."

"Compassion is not a dirty word. Compassion is not a sign of weakness. In my view, compassion in politics and in public policy is in fact a hallmark of great strength. It is a hallmark of a society which has about it a decency which speaks for itself."

"I say to those opposite: we intend to prevail in this battle of ideas, on the ground, right through to the next election. We intend to prevail."

"Labor’s message then is this: we believe in a strong economy; we believe also in a fair go for all, not just for some."

"When you analyse it carefully, it is about a family’s ability to stay together and have time together. We all know, with our fractured lives in this place, how difficult it becomes when we as human beings cannot spend time with one another. However, the problem is that these industrial relations laws now set that disease in place right across the nation in every workplace, in every part of the country. What I fear most of all is the ultimate impact of this on the fabric of Australian family life."

"We have seen this complete right wing takeover of modern liberalism, and it is an ugly spectacle to behold."

"This goes to demonstrate the fact that John Howard established this inquiry in order to bring about his own absolution, not to bring about any form of accountability."

"Since ideology matters for Xi Jinping, Rudd’s book [On Xi Jinping] matters for those who want to understand him. The alternative is reading daily Xi’s quite boring prose."

"[But] we should not be kowtowing to anybody when it comes to freedom in this country."

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view but that's seriously a weird one."

"John Howard's credibility on the entire Iraq war has been torpedoed by John Howard's own intelligence agency."

"... no diplomatic intervention will ever be made by any government that I lead in support of any individual terrorist's life. We have only indicated in the past, and will maintain a policy in the future, of intervening diplomatically in support of Australian nationals who face capital sentences abroad."